To Hell and Back with Pradeep Kumar, Founder Of Slashsquare & HellBound Bloggers

If you are an aspiring blogger looking to write a guest post or a tech enthusiast looking for your daily dose of tips and resources, you could not have missed HellBound Bloggers (HBB).

Pradeep Kumar is is the CEO & Founder of Slashsquare, an Indian Blog Network and Web Consulting Media – including HellBound Bloggers, MoviesDrop.com and HostLater.com.

HBB is a treasure trove of knowledge for aspiring newbies and also successful bloggers, with detailed and informative articles on Blogging, SEO, WordPress, Business tips and also on how to make money online. HBB has had more than 700 guest authors so far.

Inc42 had the opportunity to talk to Pradeep Kumar. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Inc42: What motivated you to take up blogging? Did you face any difficulties initially?

I love to write, and I remember keeping a diary as well. I needed a platform badly to share my views, and Google’s Blogger platform was famous at that time. I started my Blogging Life there. Since I started to blog during my school and college days, it was really difficult for me to work on it. I had troubles from my parents and school, but tried my best to manage between them.

Inc42: “HellBound Bloggers (HBB)” has a nice ring to it. How did you come up with such an unique name? How important is choosing an unique name to drive traffic to the blog?

Thanks. 🙂 A blog’s name should obviously indicate the blog’s content, but when you are creating a brand, you can be creative as well. Like say, Mashable was initially a tech and social media blog, but now they cover everything, almost.

Inc42: Approximately how many visitors do you get on your blog(s) each day?

The visits vary day to day, and it is just a matter of how well we are writing the posts and promoting it. Traffics are of this range: HBB > MoviesDrop > HostLater.

Inc42: One of the hardest things for newbie bloggers is getting traffic. Can you give a few tips for newbie bloggers to drive traffic to a new blog?

You are right, getting traffic and getting recognition are the two main difficult things for a newbie blogger. But that’s what everyone faced. Like they, every a king was once a crying baby. The trick is to write blog posts that people actually read. Why actually read? Because most of us don’t really read blog posts fully these days. We don’t read, we actually scan the blog post. So write tempting and creative posts, and you can see yourself in a good position soon.

Inc42: What is your favorite blogging tool or the tool you couldn’t live without?

Pradeep: WordPress should be the first one, if not that, then I love TweetDeck. 🙂

Inc42: What blogs do you follow?

Due to unfortunate situations I’m not able to follow any specific set of blogs recently. But I used to check my Facebook feed regularly and read interesting topics. I also use apps like Pulse and Google News to read trending topics.

Inc42: Which is your favorite gadget?

That should be my first laptop – MacBook Pro. I love it, and it is really productive. It made me jump into Professional Blogging.

Inc42: What apps are you addicted to?

Addicted to several apps on various categories. My top 10 favorite apps would be 1Password, WhatsApp, GoDaddy, TED, Quora, Dropbox, SoundCloud, Temple Run 2, Camera+ and other common Social Networking apps.

Inc42: What is your favourite book and/or movie of all time?

Favorite Book: “Rage of Angels” by Sidney Sheldon

Favorite Movie: Rope (1948) by Alfred Hitchcock

Inc42: Which inspiring personality past/present would you like to have a dinner conversation with?

That would be Elon Musk, Founder and CEO of SpaceX.

Inc42: Any advice to young bloggers/aspiring bloggers?

Even if you are a passionate blogger, at one point you’ll realize that you’ll need money to keep that passion going. So focus on your content and also experiment with some monetization methods without spamming. All the best. 🙂